CONNECTING THE DOTS

Legalize all Drugs=Use & Abuse Double: The Consequences

After the first 19 interviews with my brother Police Officer and
Detective Howard Wooldridge of Lansing, Michigan (retired) concerning the “War
on Drugs”, thousands of readers responded.U.S. taxpayers do not understand the incredible deception perpetrated on
them by the Drug War.You might even
term it a “racket” by those who stand in the power corridors of Washington, DC.

“Legalize
drugs and all hell and ruin will plague the USA as drug use/abuse doubles!”
said Officer Howard Wooldridge. “The sky will fall in.The Chicken Little’s aka The Prohibition
Crowd have used this mantra to great effect the past 15 years.Though competent addiction experts and a
2008 Zogby poll state that use and abuse of hard drugs will remain fairly
constant, what if the experts are wrong and the prohibition crowd is
correct?What if millions of us become
so stupid that we use heroin, meth and crack when they become legal?What would be the total change in the USA,
if we legalized, regulated and taxed currently prohibited drugs and this caused
use and abuse to double?

“Let’s
start with marijuana.Currently about 20
million enjoy cannabis as a recreational alternative to alcohol.Let’s take as a given that few teetotalers
will start using marijuana.Thus when 20
million citizens switch from drinking alcohol to smoking pot, this would be a
net benefit for themselves, their family and their community.How so?Ask any cop or writer of country/western songs.Alcohol use provokes in almost all of us a
bit of reckless to very reckless behavior (saying something one should not
have, to picking a fight with someone twice your size).For a significant minority alcohol usewill provoke aggressive, even violent
behavior.In this fashion a doubling of
marijuana use will reduce homicide, suicide, rape, child/spouse abuse and
assault.

“Wait what
about 20 million more people becoming lazy, losing their jobs, going on
welfare, and robbing banks to live?Everyone reading this essay has either used marijuana or knows many in
the family or friends who have.Do some
become permanently lazy?Yes, the same
as becoming an alcoholic often means a life without meaningful work.However, the overwhelming majority of
marijuana users are like you and me; hard-working and hard-playing, tax-paying
successful doctors, lawyers and such.From the past three US Presidents to half of Congress and Captains of
Industry most use pot and go on to become successful.Tell Michael Phelps, Willie Nelson or five
time all NFL pro center for the Dallas Cowboys Mark Stepnoski about being too
spaced out on cannabis to achieve greatness.

“A couple
of hundred million times this year mostly young people are going to use an
hallucinogen like X or LSD.There are
almost no accounts of users stealing, robbing or becoming prostitutes to pay
for their drug of choice.Yes, a couple
of dozen die from X use (too much or too little water is a common reason) and
that is a tragedy.Of course many more
will die this year while riding their bicycle (about 2.5 per day, opps, they
failed to wear a helmet).More
Americans will die while riding a horse than die from X.In order to protect citizens from harm,
should the government prohibit the riding of bicycles and horses?Tell your politicians.Now double the use and abuse of X and
LSD.Two times roughly zero is how much?

“The feds
tell us that perhaps a million of us use meth-amphetamine and a couple of
hundred die every year because of abuse issues and overdose.What happens when that number goes to two million?From what I know, the majority of users are
either trying to stay awake on a 12 hour shift or want to lose weight.This crowd would have access to the same 5
mg amphetamine pills we give Air Force pilots to go on long missions.With standard doses users would gain control
over their intake & improve their odds of not becoming addicted, same as
our military pilots.Of course some
will become addicted (talk to Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson after you die)
but overall, death and abuse rates should fall for this group.

“What about
those who love the sexual kick that meth provides?This crowd may switch to the sexual kick that
cocaine does provide.If they stay with
the meth, they will suffer long term health consequences.If their number doubles, they will also
suffer.On the flip side, there will be
no meth labs in America and no children eating Cheerios where mom and dad made
meth last night.No houses will blow up
and no expensive clean ups when meth houses are discovered.Since children are IMO much more important
than adults harming themselves, even a doubling of amphetamine users would be a
net plus.

“Let’s take
the last and ‘big ones’ cocaine and heroin together.Currently we believe about five million use
coke and about half million use heroin.The use of these drugs does cause significant theft crime for some/many
of the users to support their habits.This year about 9,000 will die from overdose and an unknown number
(certainly in thousands) will die from health complications associated with
dirty, shared needles, etc.

“Even as
use/abuse double the USA will experience a huge drop in felony crime, as the
price for a day’s supply of these drugs falls to about $3.00.“That money can easily me made
panhandling/begging for change.Thus
hundreds of thousands of home owners will not become victims.The number of banks and convenience stores
robbed will drop by half, saving the terror and death that those employees deal
with.

“Certainly
overdose deaths would fall dramatically, when users buy a product of known
strength and contains no rat poison etc.This would save a lot of money now spent by EMS ambulances and hospital
emergency rooms.Oh, and of course the
addicts live to have a chance to climb out of their addiction one day.

“Federal
studies and experts state that the abuse rate for cocaine is 5-6 per cent.Thus even a doubling of users would only
increase those who abuse cocaine by about 300,000.The abuse rate for heroin is about 70 per
cent of users.We would see about
350,000 new abusers of heroin.Each new
abuse case will be a personal and family tragedy.On the flip side, almost no one will die of
an overdose and with a robust treatment option (paid for by the taxes on other
drugs & savings by cutting our prisons in half), a good many will live thru
their addiction time to become clean and sober.

“The best
news of all is that the 900,000 young teens currently selling these drugs off
sidewalks and being shot in the process will become unemployed.They will be forced into making chump
change flipping burgers or being unemployed. What is the value of one child
saved?You tell me.The general savings of money will amount to
some 80 billion currently wasted by law enforcement to look for, arrest and
incarcerate drug users and sellers.The 120 billion we spend now on illegal drugs will go back into the
taxed economy, as users have more money to buy cars, a steak in town or go to
vacation in Florida.Farmers will plant
hemp and supply a growing US market for that commodity vs. the importation
currently coming from Canada.As gangs
shrink and inner cities become much
quieter (far fewer
9 mm
going pop, pop, pop) property values will increase and so probably investment
and their jobs.We would no longer fund
our mortal enemies.Al Qaeda and the
Taliban would have to find a new source of money.The police could concentrate on the deadly
DUI and reckless drivers, saving thousands from dying on our roads.Detectives could arrest a lot more child
predators.

“The
majority of Americas have admitted in polls and at the Rotary Club that Modern
Prohibition is an ineffective failure.Many see the policy as the most destructive, dysfunctional and immoral
policy since slavery and Jim Crow.Even
if we doubled the number of drug users in this country, the pluses far outweigh
the minuses.”

“Today, my brother Howard Wooldridge heads up a task force in Washington,
DC to educate and enlighten congressmen at the highest levels.He works for a better future for all
Americans.He can be reached at:Education Specialist, www.citizensopposingprohibition.org ,
Washington, DC.He speaks at colleges,
political clubs, Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions Clubs across America.He engages citizens around the country to
bring an end to the Drug War.Check out
the web site and join.Book Wooldridge
in your state! Wooldridge also presents at political conferences in Washington.
Howard@citizensopposingprohibition.org

“The mission of COP is to reduce the multitude of
unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to
lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately
ending drug prohibition.

“Envision
a country which employs the principles of personal responsibility, personal
freedom and limited/effective government toward marijuana,” Officer Wooldridge
said. “I see a growing respect for the police, as they stop intruding into the
decisions of adults, made in the privacy of their castles.Teens find it as hard to buy pot as beer.Fewer teens use it because it lost its
glamour.Imagine a land where the
deadly DUI and reckless drivers kill far fewer, as officers focus on them, not
the next pot bust.Envision detectives
arresting more child predators as they abandon the time spent arresting someone
selling pot to an adult.All this becomes
possible, when America becomes wiser and abandons the prohibition approach to
marijuana.”

Frosty
Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents – from the Arctic to the South
Pole – as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to
border. In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens,
Greece. He presents “The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what
you can do about it” to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges.
He works to bring about sensible world population balance at www.frostywooldridge.comHe is the author of:America on the Brink: The Next Added 100
Million Americans. Copies: 1 888 280 7715

Most conservatives / republicans are really fifth column socialists who really want bigger more intrusive government. I call them freedom buts: They are for freedom but...

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go to the fifth column article

Comment by Ed Price

Entered on: 2/6/2010 3:51:13 PM

You said it, TL Winslow.

Legalizing drugs is what the Government has done already!

Before Government had anything to do with drugs, they weren't legal or illegal. It was a moot question.

Then Government legalized drugs - made illegal laws about them - and now they are enforcing these illegal laws. Why are the laws illegal? Because the Constitutional authority has not been put in place for Government to make those laws.

All Government has a duty to do is to uphold the freedom for people to do anything they want as long as that freedom harms nobody else. It is a harm thing, not a potential to harm thing. People have millions of ways they can harm each other if they want. Yet the vast majority of people harm nobody. And that without government interference.

As it is, Government through its making and enforcing of most of its laws is the thing that harms people more.

Comment by TL Winslow

Entered on: 2/5/2010 11:01:54 AM

Decriminalizing drugs doesn't mean that the govt. is promoting their use, only that their use will finally be done under law, including taxation and licensing and regulation of purity, no different than tobacco and alcohol. Whether or not zillions of Americans will suddenly become drug addicts just because they're decriminalized is to be seen, since they never have been, but as an American I believe that Man has a right to be free, and can be trusted ultimately to make the right decisions, so I say go for it. The current war on drugs has resulted in gangsters creating a black market that skyrockets prices to pay for the cost of defeating and buying off law enforcement, and is a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease. So what if a certain segment want to use drugs? Even among them, only a certain percentage go out of control. It's about freedom, so keep it simple stupid. The govt. has a limit on its power to force us to be good. After all, who's watching the watchers? Of course, not only gangsters but govt. agents making a living off policing them will be out of a job, but so what, let them ask Obama for a handout. That said, I still don't want intoxicated people driving cars or planes, but there's already tons of laws in place now, so let's put the gangsters out of business and bring the users out into the light so they can do their bad habits under the law instead of outside it. I'm sure the U.S. will survive vending machines offering Marlboro T, M, and T&M blend with a pinch of C :)